Addressing the age-old problem of individual moral responsibility, author Michael Sorbonne Robinson, Sr. explores the mind of a fatherless teen boy, who watches helplessly as his childhood community descends into moral ruin, ending up, literally, as the smoking remains of a once-thriving town. Robinson’s voice is the young Billy Potter, who struggles in his own challenges of dealing with the loss of his father, the apparent duplicities of his mother, the clash of religious piety and scientific learning, and his own uncharted transition from boyhood to manhood.